However, considering today is Halloween and the driving theme behind this story is the irrational fear of fear itself, it is only fitting that The Gadfly share this.

Observe:

SAN ANTONIO – Texas Land CommissionerJerry Patterson, whose office oversees the Alamo, had two key words Wednesday about rumors that the state shrine could fall under control of the United Nations.

“Horse hockey,” Patterson, a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, said Wednesday in a statement.

Rumors have circulated in recent weeks, via email and social media, that the U.N. would manage the Alamo if it — and San Antonio's four other Spanish colonial missions — are granted World Heritage status.

Rodriguez said he wrote his report as a “cautionary piece,” having lost faith in local elected leaders. In his piece, he wrote that the Alamo “may fall under U.N. influence.” Knowing that the Alamo stands for freedom, Rodriguez said, he did nothing wrong.

“I'm just constantly saying 'may' or 'might,'” in the article, Rodriguez said late Wednesday. “I'm never once saying that this is going to happen. We need to be aware.”

Scared yet kiddies? You see -- the evil empire, er - United Nations, would like to designate the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas as a World Heritage site - just as 21 other natural and cultural sites have been designated within the United States since 1972, when the U.S., along with a majority of member nations, ratified the accord.

To put it simply, a World Heritage site is a place (such as a forest, mountain, lake, island, desert, monument, building, complex or city) that is deemed to be of special cultural or physical significance, and by virtue of such, important to the common heritage of humanity.

Yet for some reason, the Texas Tea Partiers are shitting in their skivvies at the nonsensical belief that if the Alamo is designated a World Heritage site by the U.N., then that means that the U.N. is going to send in the black helicopters carrying blue helmeted, jack-booted thugs to take over operation and control of the the two remaining and heavily restored adobe structures on the Alamo site, and presumably the cheesy gift/trinket store therein that sells overpriced, Chinese made crap to the tourists. Yeah -- that's what The Gadfly thought too.

You know -- The Gadfly is pretty goddamn grateful that these modern-day Teabaggers weren't around at a time of authentic fear of world-wide domination, like that of Hitler and the Nazis during WWII. Can you imagine these pants-wetting douche bags constantly whimpering and simpering in their fox holes about the imminent end of the world and takeover by Der Fuhrer? Shit -- we never would have won that war if these fainthearted pantywaists had been around at the time.

Ultimately - it really does just go to show that for all of their chest thumping bluster and braggadocio, these Teabaggers truly are nothing more than a bunch of chicken liver, paranoid schizophrenic invertebrates who are more fearful of their own shadows and overwrought imaginations than they are of any other threats, real or perceived, and it does nothing more than validate the increasingly adopted perception that they are manifestly unfit to govern a barbecue and beer bust in their own back yards, much less the most powerful nation on the planet.

The Gadfly sees one monumentally fatal flaw in the Iowa conservative's elevation of Ted Cruz to earth bound savior status. Far be it for The Gadfly to parade his religious background around, but if The Gadfly's decrepit old man memory is still even semi-functional, The Gadfly recalls that the Jesus he learned about in his staid, upper midwest, Lutheran Sunday school classes, dedicated his life to feeding the hungry, healing the sick and not passing judgement on others.

As The Gadfly sees it, Ted Cruz believes remorselessly in doing the exact opposite of what Jesus did which was to feed the hungry, heal the sick and judge not.

And as such - wouldn't that in actuality then make him to be the Antichrist?

Just asking folks - for The Gadfly believes it is a eminently fair question to propose since there seems to be this concerted effort within evangelical circles to feed in to Cruz's already budding God complex by elevating him to the same ethereal level as the King of Kings himself.

Apparently all that remains for the current day Christian right to complete their wet dream of being living witnesses at the second coming of Jesus is to affix a crown of thorns on Cruz's pointy head, laden him with a wooden cross and march him down Pennsylvania Avenue -- which henceforth and forevermore shall be known as the Via Dolorosa of the new religion of Cruzianity.

Bill Maher fires a silver bullet of logic at the zombie heart of right wing idiocy on the subject of the minimum wage:

When did the American dream become this pathway to indentured servitude? This economic death spiral where workers get paid next to nothing, so they can only afford to buy next to nothing, so businesses are forced to sell cheaper and cheaper shit?

Walmart employees can only afford to shop at Walmart. McDonalds workers can only afford to eat at McDonalds. And Hooters waitresses have to wear shirts they grew out of years ago.

Even if you're not moved by the "don't be such a heartless prick" argument, consider the fact that most fast food workers, whose average age by the way now is 29, we're not talking about kids, are on some form of public assistance. Which is not surprising. When even working people can't make enough to live, they take money from the government in the form of food stamps, school lunches, housing assistance, day care. This is the welfare that conservatives hate.

But they never stop to think, if we raised the minimum wage and forced McDonalds and Walmart to pay their employees enough to eat, we the taxpayers wouldn't have to pick up the slack.

This is the question the right has to answer. Do you want smaller government with less handouts, or do you want a low minimum wage? Because you cannot have both.

Honestly - who in their right fucking mind believes that a nation whose middle class work force is comprised mainly of minimum wage, service industry workers is a nation that can progress forward in to the 21st century and still maintain it's status as an economic leader in the world?

This is not rocket science kidz - nearly everything that the conservative right stands for stymies the economic growth and success potential of the country and diverts the direction of our progress from world leader to third world, banana republic status.

This progress that The Gadfly speaks of is only attainable if the sane centrists in the GOP can gather enough backbone to confront this disease of right wing extremism that has infected their caucus and regain control of their own destiny. If that comes to pass, perhaps there is still a chance that they can stem their party's steady descent in to the dustbin of political history and participate as honorable partners in working toward a vanguard American renewal - a renewal that puts the whole country and all of it's people on to a path of long term economic prosperity and breathes new life in to the nation's once flourishing middle class and restores people's ray of hope that the American dream is still alive and obtainable by all.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Thursday that Republicans in Congress are resentful of Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee's (R-UT) fundraising for an organization running ads against incumbents in the party.

Asked in an interview with with radio station KFYI's Mike Broomhead whether he considers Cruz and Lee part of the Republican "team," McCain said his colleagues are not happy about attacks coming from an outside organization with the tea party senators' support.

The Gadfly tried with all of his dirty old hippie might to feel some semblance of empathy for Senator S&L and his fellow party member's quandary. But alas, there were no feelings to be found, no concern, no sympathy. The Gadfly's Urn of Solace was lamentably arid. It is simply not within the realm of reasonable fortuity for The Gadfly to feel much of anything resembling commiseration for the party responsible for the rise of and empowerment of Ted Cruz and the Tea Party. And more specifically - The Gadfly does not feel one iota of pity for the person responsible for foisting one of the most noxious and dangerous individuals on to the American political stage -- Caribou Barbie of the Northwoods. For that transgression alone, John McCain's already scheduled stint in Purgatory deserves to be extended another millennium or two.

But The Gadfly digresses. What is particularly annoying about this story is that the GOP establishment is now trolling the media hard for compassion because Ted Cruz and those mean ol' Teabaggers are picking on them. Isn't that some hilarious shit dear readers?

We dirty hippies have been screaming from the rooftops for years that the Tea Party wasn't just some new, out of the blue grassroots uprising, but was in fact nothing more than the old far right, John Bircher/Jim Crow radicals who threw a collective shit fit when the dirty Negro was elected President and so they gussied themselves up a bit and re-branded their venomous strain of politics and social engineering as the modern day equivalent of the infamous Boston Tea Party -- which btw, is pretty humorous since the actual historical context of the original Tea Party revolved around the colonists dissent against the big corporate monopoly of the international tea trade.

The Gadfly can goddamn well guarantee you that you won't find any of these modern day Tea Partiers at any events protesting the practices of Wall Street, big banks or corporate monopolies. Nosiree - they are infinitely more concerned with investigating Obama's birth certificate, passing draconian laws aimed at suppressing minority, youth and women voters, sticking their noses in women's vaginas, providing cover to the gun goon lobbyists, trying to deny their fellow citizens access to affordable health care, and shutting down the government and playing Russian roulette with the nation's full faith and credit out of pure spite.

So no Senator McCain - The Gadfly feels nothing of yours or the GOP's pain. The malignant tumor, in the form of the Tea Party, which is currently attached to your party's buttocks is an affliction of your very own making.Perhaps a reminder from the good book on the subject of conceitedness and arrogance is in order:

Galatians 6:7-9King James Version (KJV)

7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap

8 For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption

And if that doesn't get the point across to you, perhaps this will:

The silence of a falling star

Lights up a purple sky

And as I wonder where you are

I'm so lonesome I could cry

And that is about all that The Gadfly has to say about this sordid matter.

Friday, October 25, 2013

The Gadfly has had the pleasure of attending Loverboy concerts twice - once in their heyday, circa 1984, and the 2nd time last summer with the Journey/Pat Benatar tour. Still a damn good sounding and fun band.

This one is for the working man and woman - and screw the silver spoon in mouth inheritance class . . .

The Cat Food Generation . . . Coming soon to a family member near you!:

WASHINGTON -- Next month food stamp benefits will automatically shrink for all 47 million Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Pamela Gwynn of Crawfordsville, Ind., heard about the cut in a letter from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration. The letter explained that a federal law called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the "stimulus package," had given food stamp recipients a temporary boost in 2009.

"The increased benefits provided by this law are expected to expire on November 1, 2013," the letter said. "Most families will see their benefits decrease in November due to the end of the extra benefits provided by the 2009 law."

Gwynn, 63, said a series of brain surgeries in the late 1990s left her partially deaf and reliant on $731 per month in disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. Her monthly food stamp benefit will go down from $91 to $80. Gwynn did some arithmetic and figured that would leave her 88 cents per meal.

"Eighty-eight cents won't buy anything except a cup of ramen noodles," she said. "They just keep cutting and cutting. Eighty-eight cents -- you cannot even buy a can of tuna for 88 cents."

The Gadfly can already hear the snickering of the Teabaggers in response to the doomed Ms. Gwynn's plight -- "Learn to manage your money better you socialist loving moocher! And be sure to check out the plain label tuna cat food at the .99 cents stores - you can usually get a good bargain on those! Hehe..."

It has been observed by many a famous historical actor, in one form or another, that "the true measure of a moral and honorable society can be known by how it treats it's weakest and most vulnerable members."

The Gadfly is not shy to state that based on the sum total of wealth in this country, the manner in which we coddle and undeservedly reward the super wealthy, how we waste it on endless wars and military-industrial-complex tomfoolery, and ultimately by the manner in which we are treating our weakest and most vulnerable citizens, at this point in our history this country has no right whatsoever to lay claim to any mantle of superior honor or morals, braggadocio be damned.

And The Gadfly swears -- the first putz that regurgitates the insipid talking point that America "needs to cut entitlements like Social Security and Medicare and food stamps because we'll go broke if we don't," --just save The Gadfly the vexation of such a futile debate and trot your dumb monkey ass to the nearest bathroom, stick your head in the toilet and pull the flush lever - for that truly is the only proper response to such uninformed inanity.

Click on the highlighted links in the preceding paragraph to find out the reality-based truth about each of those programs and how they have saved and still do save America money while simultaneously enhancing the quality of life of our society's weakest and most vulnerable.

In summation, if giving a damn about those less fortunate and vulnerable in addition to believing we should expect the super wealthy to give back a bit more to the society and country that they have used as a vehicle to attain that wealth makes The Gadfly a dirty, hippie socialist -- then so be it -- The Gadfly accepts the epithet with pride and honor, and more so considering the source of such invective.

Fox "News" - being the good little propagandizing apparatchiks that they are - has been breathlessly pimping this story last night and today claiming that President Obama directed the U.S. Marine Corps. to adopt a new unisex style of dress uniform hat, and that the manly Marines are terribly upset at Obama for wanting to force them to wear girly attire.

And as if The Gadfly's more astute, reality-based readers might well have guessed, the story turns out to be entirely and purely 100% cockamamie bullshit.

Here is the military's own newspaper of record, Stars and Stripes, debunking the childish nonsense:

Published: October 24, 2013

The story is sweeping the Internet: President Barack Obama is trying to emasculate male Marines by making them wear a girly cover with their famed dress uniforms. The only problem? It’s not true.

“The president in no way, shape or form directed the Marine Corps to change our uniform cover,” according to the Marine Corps statement. “We are looking for a new cover for our female Marines for one overriding reason: The former manufacturer went out of business. … The Marine Corps has zero intention of changing the male cover.”

It truly is a telling indicator of just how fucking stupid and gullible that Fox feels their viewers are that they continually flog these embellished (and in some cases completely invented) internet stories on-air. If any of the other major network or cable news outlets were to be caught as often and as red-handed as Fox has been attempting to peddle this kind of hogwash as legitimate news, they would be laughed into permanent media irrelevancy, and possibly even had their FCC broadcasting license revoked.

And keep this in mind - if Fox is willing to go to these absurd lengths to lie to the American people about an issue as inconsequential as this, one can only imagine the degree of misinformation and deceit that they are employing in order to influence people's minds on the major socio-economic and political issues of the day, which ultimately have real world consequences for the country on whole.

Somewhere in the fiery caverns of hell, Joseph Goebbels is having a maniacal giggle fit.

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Esquire's Charles Pierce and The Gadfly must have been conjoined twins who were separated at birth.

Every time The Gadfly thinks he has come up with a blog post that he believes is quite relevant to the current monkeyshines going on in the sewer pit that is right wing politics, Pierce beats The Gadfly to it.

Observe:

I don't have much use for Debbie Wasserman Schultz as a chairperson of the Democratic National Committee. She strikes me as rather a twit, actually. (She showed up at one of the Republican primary debates in New Hampshire last time around to spin for the Democrats and I believe had to be fastened to the floor lest she float away.) Lord knows, she's a cut above obvious anagram Reince Priebus on the other side, Priebus at the moment recovering from a sudden attack of invisibility. But DWS, as she's known, haz a sad because Alan Grayson compared the Tea Party to the Klan in a mailing, and now she apparently has signed onto the suddenly popular political philosophy of Dean Vernon Wormer of Faber College.

No shit Charlie. In fact, The Gadfly would be inclined to take that admonition one step further and tell Ms. Schultz to put a big fucking sweat soggy, toe-jam encrusted sock in it. Oh - and damn you Pierce for for the National Lampoon's Animal House reference - that one caught The Gadfly completely off guard and the result was a guffaw induced ruptured spleen.

But you know - it is precisely because of gutless concern trolls like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, that toward the latter half of Baby Bush's drunk driving rampage through the nation's countryside, The Gadfly unceremoniously ditched his two decades old status as a registered voting Democrat in favor of independent status. Oh sure - The Gadfly still votes probably 80-90% straight Dem ticket, but it's only because the quality of the GOP candidates is so god-awfully atrocious, there really isn't much choice other than pulling the lever while wearing a gas mask for the Dem you dislike just a bit less than the other turd candidate.

And The Gadfly just has to uproariously laugh at this steaming pile of centrist codswallop that comprised the press statement which Schultz issued in response to Congressman Alan Grayson's swipe at the Tea Party which rightly compared their current popularity to the KKK:

"Obviously I am disappointed in the use of that imagery. Both sides need to dial back that kind of rhetoric and look to bring more civility into politics,"

Civility in politics?? Oh really Debbie?? So what you are saying is that you put Grayson's truthful and provable statements on the same level as shit like this:

or this:

or this:

Fuck you Debbie. Stick to your job as DNC Chairwoman of sucking up to and greasing the palms of the big business interests and leave the job of fist fighting the Teahadist boors to those of us who actually have the inclination and stomach for such a distasteful mission.

Jon Stewart catches the financial geniuses at CNBC and FBN crying crocodile tears over JP Morgan Chase's agreement to pay a $13 billion fine to the DOJ for their securities fraud - and by "geniuses" in this case, The Gadfly really means shameless whores who are so beholden to the investor class that if JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon were to clench his sphincter muscle the whole lot of them would be instantly decapitated.

Watch how the disgust and disdain for these charlatans literally drips from Stewart's sarcasm as he guts and filets them in one fell swoop:

It continually amazes The Gadfly that conservatives, including these 1% bootlickers at CNBC and FBN, have yet to fully grasp the concept of archived video and audio tapes. One would think that in this modern world with Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and 24x7 cable and blogging, that these idiots would take heed to remember that every time they open their pie holes in a public forum, the odds are that someone is recording their bullshit for posterity.

Yet this is what makes Jon Stewart, and also Stephen Colbert, so invaluable to the cause of holding these lying and conniving bastards accountable -- for the mainstream media certainly does not want to do so, because either it fears the credibility damage that they would do to their own brand or it is simply that they are just too hopelessly corrupt to perform this kind of self-correcting analysis of their own industry.

And yes - while it is lamentable that we have to rely on a couple of comedians to get this kind of truth out in to the public sphere - The Gadfly would wager that at the very least, the snake-oil salesmen and carnival barkers who the humorists are exposing are slowly coming to the realization that the tainted product (corporate propaganda), which they are peddling via these cable financial shows, is falling on more and more deaf ears every time somebody like Stewart or Colbert shines a white-hot light on their prevaricating ways.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

That leads us to rally attendee Captain Mac, who identified himself as the founder of the Tea Party Militia and a member of the Austin Rifles of the Texas Brigade. “For this, the FBI has had me under surveillance,” he said jovially.

“They noticed I was buying a lot of legally imported Russian weapons.” He pointed to the box his gun, a Ukrainian assault rifle with a rough-looking birchwood stock, arrived in. “That’s Cyrillic — ‘Wild Boar,’ it means in English. The ammo comes via UPS straight to your door.”

I had wanted to talk to Captain Mac because of his large Ted Cruz sign, visible from throughout the rally. But Cruz isn’t Captain Mac’s only cause. He pointed out an addendum to the sign, with symbols for major fascist and white supremacist organizations.

“I’m also recruiting for these organizations,” he said. “There’s the National Socialist Movement — their slogan is, ‘deport them all, let God sort them out.’” He points to the number 88, indicating the 8th letter of the alphabet (that would be the letter ‘h’ or ‘HH’). “Heil Hitler. We’re anti-fascist, of course. But he was doing pretty good until he started taking everyone’s guns and attacking his neighbors. Imagine if none of that had happened.”

Honestly - what kind of hallucinogens are they pumping in to the drinking water in Texas these days?

This Captain Mac clown, aside from being frighteningly clueless as to what historical fascism has been and still is (here's a tip: look in the mirror fella while mouthing your own propaganda), pretty much validates The Gadfly's, and increasingly, many other's perspective that this homegrown, far right element, of which you most certainly can include a predominant portion of the Tea Party, are much more of an imminent danger to America's form of representative democracy than a bunch of medieval-era, rifle toting goat herders cave-hopping in the nether regions of Afghanistan.

So old Adolf Hitler was "doing pretty good until he started taking everyone's guns and attacking his neighbors. Imagine if none of that had happened?" Really? So everything else Hitler and his minions did outside of that action was just fine and dandy huh? You supremely and ridiculously ignorant fuck - except for the fact that he didn't take everyone's guns - only those of his political adversaries, people of certain religious faiths, and other dissidents and critics whom he deemed insufficiently supine to his brute force. And no doubt you think that the eventual rounding up of those same "enemies" and trundling them off to the gas chambers and ovens was a "pretty good" thing too eh?

"Don't Tread On Me. . . ." - sigh . . . The Gadfly really, really does try very hard to give these hard core teabaggers some benefit of the doubt and grants them a great deal of latitude in their public statements, but when he reads anti-American, obnoxious shit like this, the first urge that comes to The Gadfly's mind is to want to furiously plant his size 10 motorcycle boots up this cracker's backside and tread all over his oafish ass.

And don't bother looking for anyone within the Tea Party leadership to openly condemn this asshole and his words. Nope. Will not happen. Why? Because this loser is an integral part of their base and even more tellingly - behind closed doors - the heavy hitters in the movement do pretty much agree with a substantial segment of his views of the world.

And for the umpteenth time - The Gadfly is not anti-gun, he's just anti-criminals and anti-stupid motherfuckers with guns.

And when the mainstream media hacks (as if on cue) also came down with a sudden case of the fainting vapors at such "uncivil" discourse by a public official, Grayson refused to back down one inch, and in fact, doubled down on his charge by saying, "there is overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party is the home of bigotry and discrimination in America today, just as the KKK was for an earlier generation. If the Hood fits, wear it."

ZING!

First off - thank you Alan Grayson for pointing out publicly something that has been so fucking obvious from the day that Obama was elected, which from a timeline perspective, just also happens to neatly coincide with the genesis of the Tea Party movement itself.

When The Gadfly first heard of some nascent Tea Party activities in his neck of the woods, he decided to mosey on over to one of their outdoor rallies just to see what the ruckus was all about. What The Gadfly encountered was a sorry looking group of (almost exclusively) middle aged pot-bellied and older white males grunting and groaning about the Kenyan Muslim and his filthy family sullying the people's White House and how ACORN and the New Black Panthers stole the election from Grandpa McCain and Caribou Barbie through massive, nation-wide voter fraud. Many carried signs and wore t-shirts with racially tinged messages, some thinly veiled in their venom, others blatantly antagonistic.

Through Obama's first term, The Gadfly was on the receiving end of many a chain e-mail that contained subject matter within which had The President, and in many instances his wife and daughters, the butt of jokes typically involving fried chicken, water melon, pimp attire, welfare checks, etc. -- you know, the not so subtle stuff. Then the Affordable Care Act fight came along and when the law was passed, the hysterics on the right were ratcheted up to Defcon 4 level. Then came the Obama dressed as an African tribal witch doctor photoshop pics, replete with spear in hand and bone through the nose, followed by yet more photo shop pics of him and his family portrayed as various forms of half-human, half simian creatures. Sure - all in good, political fun right? Except, of course, for the reality of the deeply disturbing and ugly racial overtone of the messages that typically accompanied those pics.

And lest anyone believe that this hostility by the Tea Party has been tempered by Obama crushing the pasty white establishment dynamic duo of Willard Romney and Paul Ryan in his re-election, think again. Just today comes news from Mississippi that the Teabagger candidate who is challenging the semi-moderate (meaning doesn't publicly espouse that "The South will Rise Again") senator Thad Cochran, has been hanging out with some new-age Confederate types. Observe:

Mississippi State Sen. Chris McDaniel (R), the recently announced primary challenger for Sen. Thad Cochran's (R-Miss) Senate seat, spoke at a neo-Confederate conference in Laurel, Mississippi in August, according to Mother Jones.

The conference was hosted by the Jones County Rosin Heels, a local chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Invitations for the event described it as a "Southern Heritage Conference" intended for "politically incorrect folks." Actually, Mother Jones also noted, that event was the second Jones County Rosin Heels event he recently attended. In June McDaniel was the keynote speaker at the Division Reunion in Jackson, also hosted by the Jones County Rosin Heels.

The Jones County Heels have been pretty clear about its secessionist sentiments, Mother Jones further noted. The group's newsletter said in September said that "we are living in the times that Jefferson Davis predicted would one day come" where the disagreements that resulted in the Civil War arose again.

Oh Yeah -- cozying up with people who would love nothing more than to relive the glory days of secession and civil war -- lovely.

But think about it dear readers. Secession? Another Civil War? Really? What the fuck didn't these ass-backward, neanderthals learn from the previous lesson on that subject?? And don't you love how they candy coat it by saying that the root cause of the civil war was "disagreements?" Well, if The Gadfly's memory of his civil war studies is even faintly accurate, those "disagreements" revolved primarily around the fact that one side wished to maintain a system of state-sanctioned human bondage, torture and cruelty while the other decided that that was no way for a democracy and a moral and just people to behave. The side that was for human bondage, torture and cruelty then made a calculated decision to break up the country because they couldn't have things their way. The rest, as they say, is bloody history.

So let's just be completely honest with ourselves here ok? Whenever your chosen and funded candidates are palling around with folks who are still clinging to quotes from a long dead traitor who was directly responsible for a civil war that took the lives of 625,000 Americans, all because he couldn't continue overseeing the enslavement of human beings of a different skin color, then you have got a problem on your hands that all of the public denials in the world cannot fucking obfuscate.

Oh - and fuck you to the mainstream media for jumping on Alan Grayson for daring to upset the tender sensibilities of their bourgeois punditocracy by performing what should have been their fucking job in the first place - which is telling the goddamn truth to the American people, regardles of how unsettling it might be. This country needs more politicians like him, and fewer banal media courtiers in The Gadfly's humble view.

Here's a little video clip from one of The Gadfly's all-time favorite movies which pretty much epitomizes the Tea Party's relationship with President Obama, and which the mainstream media embarrassingly refuses to acknowledge (hint - the old lady represents the Tea Party):

And that pretty much sums up everything The Gadfly has to say about this sordid matter.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The Gadfly begs pardon for the impropriety, but one truly does just have to laugh, for if you allow the revolting reality of it all to infest your soul, you'll just go stark-raving mad:

JPMorgan Chase has struck a tentative deal with the Justice Department to pay a record $13 billion over dodgy mortgage products — but the biggest U.S. bank may be able to slash that bill by paying Uncle Sam less in taxes.

Details of the pact are now being finalized, but it is expected to include $9 billion paid to the government and $4 billion in relief for wronged customers.

The silver lining for JPMorgan: The bank will likely be able to write off a good chunk of those funds by calling them business expenses, tax experts said.

You see kids -- the game truly is rigged. There simply is no other way to explain how it is possible for a company to engage in criminal behavior that has directly contributed to a WORLD-WIDE economic crisis, causing untold suffering and ruined lives and futures for millions, only to pay a fine that is pennies on the dollar compared to their profit margin, no individual actors held accountable, and in the end the company just writes off the entire degenerate affair as a business expense/tax credit.

And where, pray tell, is the Ted Cruz/Tea Party outrage at all of this news? [ ♪♪ crickets chirping ♪♪ ]That's right.

And that dear readers is why The Gadfly never, ever - ever - wishes to hear any conservative, any fucking where spouting off at the mouth about values and honor and integrity and loving your country and patriotism.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Professional oceanic yacht racer Ivan MacFadyen recreates a voyage from a decade ago and discovers a major difference in this new oceanic experience compared to the previous one -- and it's a difference that ought to make thoughtful, rational and caring people lose a lot of sleep at night.

Observe:

"They told us that his was just a small fraction of one day's by-catch. That they were only interested in tuna and to them, everything else was rubbish. It was all killed, all dumped. They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."

Macfadyen felt sick to his heart. That was one fishing boat among countless more working unseen beyond the horizon, many of them doing exactly the same thing.

No wonder the sea was dead. No wonder his baited lines caught nothing. There was nothing to catch.

If that sounds depressing, it only got worse.

The next leg of the long voyage was from Osaka to San Francisco and for most of that trip the desolation was tinged with nauseous horror and a degree of fear.

"After we left Japan, it felt as if the ocean itself was dead," Macfadyen said.

"We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head. It was pretty sickening.

"I've done a lot of miles on the ocean in my life and I'm used to seeing turtles, dolphins, sharks and big flurries of feeding birds. But this time, for 3000 nautical miles there was nothing alive to be seen."

Anyone with even the slightest amount of cognitive thinking ability knows that mankind is slow motion strangling the precious life out of this beautiful planet that we all live on.

From the childishly obtuse climate change deniers, to the fishermen who refuse to believe that the sources of their targeted catch are finite, to politicians who, whether they believe in environmental preservation or not, gladly accept money from the world's worst polluters and environmental pillagers, to heads of state, whose myopia and fecklessness ensures remedial action at curbing the damage to humanity's life-giving habitat is perpetually encumbered -- well . . . all The Gadfly has to say to those who are apathetic about these issues, and even hostile in some cases to the view that mankind is to blame, or dimly deny that there is even a crisis at all, is don't come crying to those of us who fucking told you so when the consequences of your foolhardy intransigence engenders a calamitous world that leaves you and/or your descendants staring in to the dark chasm of your own species' mortality.

And that pretty much sums up everything that The Gadfly has to say about this lamentable matter.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Davion is one of 500,000 children waiting for adoption in the United States, many of them for years on end. Many of them are never adopted, particularly once they hit their teens, eventually “aging out” of the foster care system, 20,000 of them every year. About a week ago, this fifteen-year-old young man made international headlines when he stood up in a church in St. Petersburg, Florida, and asked for someone, anyone, to adopt him. “I’ll take anyone, old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple, I don’t care,” he said. “And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be.”

And this, dear readers, is one of the principal justifications for why The Gadfly does not have an ounce of empathy for the Pro-Lifer people.

The day that The Gadfly sees the Pro-Life, anti-abortion people, en-masse, with unconditional love and acceptance in their hearts, volunteering to adopt some of these half a million abandoned kids -- that will be the day that The Gadfly, possibly, could open a channel of dialog with them. However, until that scenario comes to pass, The Gadfly honestly does not give a flying shit about their views on the matter of abortion.

Yup -- a $13 million criminal penalty and you still walk away with $40 billion. Nice fucking work if you can get it - dontcha know?

Not only that, it was the JP Morgans and the Bank of Americas of the world who were directly responsible for the 2008 financial crisis and succeeding recession, which to date, has cost the American people an estimated $12.8 TRILLION in reduced economic output. You heard right dear readers --- $12.8 fucking TRILLION folks. That amount of money could have provided every man, woman and child in this country with free health care for the next decade, and there would still would have been a couple of TRILLION left over which could have been used to create jobs, provide educational opportunities for our young people, and invest in our aging national infrastructure.

Therefore - frankly speaking folks - The Gadfly would gladly, and wholeheartedly, give every fucking penny of that $13 billion back if we were to just be provided with the opportunity to see JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon and the rest of the thieving banksters and Wall Street bunco artists wearing orange prison jump suits and being frog-marched through the entry doors of Leavenworth to face life sentences at hard labor.

And that pretty much sums up everything The Gadfly has to say about this sordid matter.

Hoo boy - The Gadfly has heard it said that everything is bigger in Texas, but mercy! - this shit kicker Ted Cruz has got some brass balls the size of church bell clappers:

In remarks likely to deepen his rift with members of his own party, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he wants conservatives to hold Senate Republicans "accountable" for opposing the ill-fated effort to defund the Affordable Care Act.

Well - since we're on the subject of accountability - exactly who, pray tell, is going to hold Ted Cruz and his merry band of Teabagging pirates accountable for the $24 billion lost to the U.S. economy for their pissy, whining little temper tantrum that shut down the government and brought the country to the edge of the proverbial abyss of economic havoc by defaulting on it's debt? Who?? The voters of Texas? Hahaha! Not hardly. So who then is up to the repellent task?

The Gadfly is - that's who. The Gadfly will absolutely, and with much relish (no mustard please), hold that arrogant, democracy-hating jackass accountable.

Oh sure, the writings on this shitty little blog don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but damn it - somebody has to speak up and call out the charlatans and connivers like Ted Cruz and demand that they be held accountable for their actions. For in The Gadfly's humble view, silence about their transgressions equates to complicity, and complicity, as it relates to Cruz and his goose stepping acolytes, amounts to abandoning hope for a better future for America and all Americans.

Fearing that terrorists might use the electrical device implanted near his heart to kill him, former Vice President Dick Cheney said he had his doctor turn off its wireless function in 2007.

In an interview set to air Sunday on "60 Minutes," Cheney, who has a long history of heart problems, said his cardiologist disabled the defibrillator's wireless function over concern that terrorists could use it to send a fatal shock. Years after the procedure, Cheney noticed that very scenario play out in an episode of the show "Homeland."

"I was aware of the danger...that existed...I found it credible," Cheney said. "I know from the experience we had and the necessity for adjusting my own device, that it was an accurate portrayal of what was possible."

Lol!! Hoo boy - The Gadfly just knows that there's a wealth of justice themed comicality in that excerpt - but will defer and allow the late night comedians to reap the pleasure of the mockery that is certain to be dished out.

As it is though - you just have to wonder whether or not if there truly is a sentient being with a wicked sense of humor running the show down here from a celestial perch above. Then again, it could just simply be that sometimes karmic justice likes to put an entertaining twist on it's operational technique. Either way, this is some funny fucking shit.

Imagine if you will - the mischievous irony that abounds in this story. The fact that such a loathsome human being like Cheney has to spend the last few years of his execrable existence worrying whether "turrists" are clandestinely plotting to hack in to and high voltage jump start the defibrillator that keeps his charcoal black heart pumping - is priceless. And it goes without saying that it is probably the next best form of retribution that the depraved bastard could endure for his crimes -- short of that is -- his ultimate fate, which The Gadfly's pious sources inform him, involves the wailing of souls, pits of brimstone, lakes of fire and and a personal, up close introduction to a red skinned fellow with goat horns on his forehead and a tail with a pitchfork tip.

The Gadfly just finished listening to Black Sabbath's new (released in June) studio album '13' and was elated to find out that they haven't sold out their roots and their signature dark, moody and heavy sound. It is the best Sabbath album The Gadfly has heard in years.

And The Gadfly has to tell you - Ozzy's voice sounds fucking fantastic. The Gadfly uses the word 'fantastic' for how else can you describe a 64 year old heavy metal singer, who's rock star lifestyle should have ravaged and neutralized any normal human being's liver, sounding like he did in his 25 year old heyday?

Anyhow - if you're a Sabbath and Ozzy fan, you won't be disappointed by listening to this album.

Here's an official video that Sabbath just released for the song "Loner." Enjoy:

MSNBC's Martin Bashir demonstrates the textbook manner of how to deal with the delusional, rightwing Tea nuts. Yes it is unfortunate that in order to have a straightforward "dialogue" with these people it becomes necessary to lower one's self to their level of worldview intellect, however if that is what it takes to get your message across to them, then so be it.

Watch how Bashir uses Teabagger, Birther and all around nutcase Larry Klayman's very own words against him as a weapon - to bludgeon his spittle-laced idiocy in to a pile of squalid mush:

Some would say - "stop giving these idiots air time and the problem is solved." That sounds like a good strategy on paper, however in this day of media proliferation and when you have a major, nation-wide network (Fox fucking "News") who promote these assholes and their views 24x7, then that changes the whole dynamic of the blue print on how to deal with them.

Therefore it is better to bring them on with someone who isn't intimidated by their bombast and lies and is armed with enough facts and reality-based knowledge to eloquently and intelligently challenge and disprove their bullshit, turn it back on them, and ultimately make them look like the petulant and ignorant fools that they are.

Good on MSNBC and Martin Bashir for having the backbone to tackle such a distasteful, albeit essential, undertaking.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Caribou Barbie is still desperately clinging to her 15 minutes of fame.

Watch and cringe:

The fact that the Republican party made a calculated decision and determined that this pompous, uninformed nitwit was qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency, should be the crowning epitaph on the conservative movement's tombstone.

The Gadfly is sincere when he states that he is completely flummoxed as to what the solution is to having a rational dialogue with people who simply and intractably refuse to acknowledge reality and facts.

For example:

A national poll conducted for Bloomberg News in September shows that Tea Party Republicans are, across the board, more conservative than their fellow party members, more likely to be male, less financially secure, more pessimistic about the direction of the country and more antagonistic to President Barack Obama. The results illustrate why the schism, which has become so evident in the recent battles in Washington, between the Republican establishment and the Tea Party will be difficult to reconcile.

On the economy, less than a quarter of non-Tea-Party Republicans expect job growth to worsen over the next year, while 55 percent of Tea Partiers expect job growth to slow. While a bare majority of other Republicans see America's economic standing in the world worsening, 79 percent of Tea Party types do.

Two-thirds of regular Republicans believe the federal budget deficit has grown this year and 93 percent of Tea Party Republicans agree. Both are wrong; the budget deficit is projected to fallthis year from $1.1 trillion to $642 billion.

The deficit has been falling for nearly a year and a half now. If the Tea Partiers were to accept that fact and acknowledge the reality of it, then what is left for them to bitch about? The Affordble Care Act (ACA)? The CBO, a federal, non-partisan agency tasked with analyzing legislation and providing economic data to Congress, was created by Republican Richard Nixon in 1974. The CBO has been providing apolitical economic projections to Congress, regardless of which party is in control, for nearly 40 years - and they have been pretty damn accurate over time. The CBO is projecting that over the next decade, if the ACA is implemented as the law is written, not only will it provide basic health care coverage to 33 million Americans who currently have no coverage at all, it will also realize for the taxpayers, a cut in the deficit of more than $200 billion over that same decade.

So here we are - the deficit at present time is falling steadily. The ACA healthcare law is projected to reduce the deficit another $200 billion. At the sake of sounding repetitious -- If the Tea Partiers were to accept those facts and acknowledge the reality of them, then what is left for them to bitch about?

The Gadfly will tell you what their biggest grievance is . . . . .

This:

And The Gadfly does not feel he is exaggerating one iota when he states that he believes The Teahadists just might have a less antagonistic and vitriolic mindset if the fellow in the picture above looked like this instead:

Tell The Gadfly he is wrong. Prove The Gadfly wrong. Please do so! That is not a boastful challenge. It is a simple acknowledgement of reality based on easily provable facts. And The Gadfly will tell you dear readers -- he passionately and genuinely wishes he were erroneous on this issue. But when you look at the cold, hard facts and you analyze the Tea Partier's own words and actions, there is no other conclusion that can be arrived at.

And that is why The Gadfly berates the Teahadists so mercilessly -- because their discourse miserably fails the test of reality-based efficacy, and is inexorably infused with a dark strain of ugly and mean-spirited bigotry that is un-American --- and this irrational hatred needs to be confronted and marginalized to the point that their movement is impotent and powerless to inflict further damage on the great American experiment -- and that is what it is all about in The Gadfly's humble fucking opinion.

Remember this clown that The Gadfly posted about awhile back? You know - the Idaho Tea Party asshole who was bitching and moaning about the Affordable Care Act being government intrusion into his life and calling for the dismantling of ALL government social programs, only to have it revealed that he had 10 piglet children suckling off of the nanny state's teat in the form of taxpayer funded Medicaid health insurance?

Well, true to form, this fine fellow is now angling to collect a tax payer funded salary to go along with his Medicaid mothered offspring:

A Tea Party candidate for Idaho's House of Representatives defended himself against allegations of hypocrisy following an NBC News article in which he admitted to signing his entire family up for Medicaid while running on a platform that calls for the dismantling of all government programs.

"Let me set the record straight. Yes, I participate in government programs of which I adamantly oppose. Many of them, actually. Am I a hypocrite for participating in programs that I oppose? If it was that simple, and if participation demonstrated support, then of course. But, my reason for participation in government programs often is not directly related to that issue in and of itself, and it certainly does not demonstrate support. For instance, I participate in government programs in order to stay out of the courts, or jail, so that I can take care of my family; other things I do to avoid fines or for other financial reasons; and some are simply because it is the only practical choice. With each situation, I have to evaluate the consequences of participating or not participating."

Yep - you set the record straight pal. The Gadfly sure is grateful for the clarification.

Fucking Lol! Can you truly believe that brazen bullshit dear readers?

And you want to know what the even more depressing, still to come part of this story is folks? This gutless worm turd masquerading as a man will win his election.